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Business & Macroeconomy
🇧🇼 Botswana has adjusted its currency strategy, allowing the pula to depreciate by 2.76% over the next year amid reduced global diamond demand. This is a steeper devaluation than the initially planned 1.51%.
🇰🇪 Kenya faces mounting debt obligations, allocating $531 million for external debt repayment in July alone. Of this, $432 million is earmarked for Chinese loans funding the Standard Gauge Railway.
🇿🇦 South Africa is losing $1.6 billion annually due to tax evasion linked to illicit cigarette sales, according to research backed by British American Tobacco’s local division.
Climate & Energy
🇬🇭 Ghana commenced an upgrade of its Kumasi transmission line to triple power capacity to over 1,000 MVA. The $11 million project is supported by the EU and the French Development Agency.
🇦🇴 Angola, alongside ExxonMobil and Sonangol, has extended production rights for the Block 15 deepwater asset, which has yielded 2.6 billion barrels of oil to date.
Geopolitics & Policy
🇸🇳 Senegal’s Navy intercepted 201 migrants attempting to cross to Spain’s Canary Islands, highlighting the growing reliance on this perilous migration route.
🇸🇴 Somalia is investigating a suicide bombing at Mogadishu’s Jaalle Siyaad Military Academy. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility, alleging the attack targeted a Western training delegation.
🇳🇬 Nigeria recorded 2,266 deaths from insurgency and banditry in the first half of 2025, surpassing the 2024 total. Armed groups continue to exploit overstretched military resources across multiple regions.
🇳🇬 Nigeria is also a focal point of a Russian digital influence campaign, according to a French intelligence report, which links AI-driven disinformation to a pro-Kremlin network posing as independent African media.
🇧🇯 Benin has adopted a hearts-and-minds strategy in its jihadist-threatened north, providing free veterinary care and schools to win local support and prevent extremist recruitment.
🇸🇩 Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed at least eight civilians in a drone strike on a shelter in El Fasher, worsening humanitarian conditions amid a sustained siege of the North Darfur capital.
🇨🇩 DRC and M23 rebels have opened truce negotiations in Qatar, following a June peace deal between DRC and Rwanda. Talks are aimed at broadening the scope of the existing agreement.
🇨🇩 Kalemie, a strategic city in eastern DRC, remains under pressure from floods and displaced populations as conflict continues in nearby provinces despite a formal peace deal.
🇱🇾 Libya faces renewed military tension in Tripoli. The UN has urged restraint, calling for withdrawal of newly deployed forces and adherence to existing security frameworks.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia’s Amhara region is suffering from severe healthcare disruptions due to ongoing conflict, according to Doctors Without Borders, which has halted ambulance services amid rising insecurity.
🇪🇹 Tigrayan women’s groups are warning of renewed instability and demanding justice for wartime atrocities. Nearly one million remain displaced, with large parts of the region under continued occupation.
🇸🇸 South Sudan’s Anyuak king, Cham Odiel Gora, marked Independence Day by urging peace and national unity ahead of the country’s first general elections in 2026.
🇨🇮 Ivory Coast has charged a Malian politician with insulting President Alassane Ouattara, amid tense bilateral relations. The official was arrested over past remarks critical of Ouattara.
🇨🇮 Political tensions are also growing domestically, with three youth leaders of the opposition PDCI party arrested, adding to a series of detentions just months before October’s presidential election.
Tech & Deals
🇺🇬 Uganda’s Cold Solutions Kazi secured an $18 million debt facility from the Africa Go Green Fund, to build a sustainable cold-storage facility.
🇸🇳 Senegal’s PAMECAS, a microfinance institution, received a $7 million risk-sharing facility from the IFC to expand access to credit for farmers and small businesses.
Natural Resources & Regulation
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe’s lithium sector has surged, with export revenues exceeding $80 million in Q1 2025, up from just $1.8 million in 2018. However, concerns mount over Chinese exploitation, land degradation, and displacement.
🌍 African ministers have adopted the Pan-African Resources Reporting Code (PARC) to standardize and improve transparency in mineral resource governance across the continent.
Source: semafor.com and africacenter.org
